Divine Gift
by Lewen
Summary: Prayers are always answered But the Powers are not Santa Claus they will give you what you need (formating fixed hopefully)
1. Prologue

Divine Gift  
  
By Lewen AKA Stonewar  
  
PG  
  
  
Spoilers Narrative begins during S7, Same Time, Same Place  
  
Summary: Willow makes a plea  
  
A/N: In a "looking for a fic" requests in one of my yahoo!groups I found a premise that sounded  
interesting so I waited until response was posted so I could read it too. It turned out the "original concept"  
that I was attracted to was an excuse to write a Buffy-bashing Giles-Dom S/W fic. Yuck. So I decided to redo it.  
I haven't decided on ships. There might not be any.  
(bare with me the prologue is just internal dialogue. the real action in chapter 1)  
  
***  
  
  
Pray without ceasing.  
  
That was a lesson taught at the vacation bible school Jesse had dragged Xander and   
I to when we were younger. He didn't care whether we were Protestant Jewish or Catholic.  
All he cared about was the pizza party that the teacher promised if they reached an attendance goal.  
I had asked my Rabbi about it later since the concept didn't make sense couched in all the   
evangelical stuff that I was unfamiliar with. He explained that it means to have a running dialogue   
with God. To give thanks for every blessing as you encounter it, to ask for guidance during your day  
and to ask forgiveness as you falter instead of saving it all up for bedtime.  
My question was answered so I did not contemplate it again. The Rosenburgs were not the most observant  
of households. Is there a Jewish equivalent for CAPE Catholic?  
  
When you have an addiction, you join a twelve-step program. So when we decided I was addicted to magic,  
something I later learned was a bit of a fallacy, I read all the literature about recovery programs. These are the steps:  
1. I admit I am powerless over my addiction-that my life has become unmanageable.  
2. I have come to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.   
3. Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand Him.  
4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.  
5. Admit to God, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs.   
6. I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.  
7. Humbly ask Him to remove my shortcomings.  
8. Make a list of all persons I have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.   
9. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.  
10. Continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong, promptly admitted it.   
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as I understand Him,  
praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.   
12. Have a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps; try to carry this message to others and to  
practice these principles in all my affairs.  
  
Despite its attempts to be religion-neutral it still smacks of Christianity. Something even after all these years  
of relying nightly on crosses and holy water is still alien to me.  
  
I quit cold turkey and joined a group. Being able to talk was nice but I don't think any of them were able to   
touch the extreme I had reached or to even understand that it was possible. I had highs and I had lows.  
Boy did I ever have a low.   
  
Giles brought me to England, to separate me from the dark taint of the hellmouth, to give the friends I hurt so  
much space, to be among other witches. I had been a solo practitioner for too long and it was partly to blame  
for my troubles. In that peaceful place I remembered the 12 steps again and realized though I claimed proudly  
to be wiccan, I truly was only a magician (not to be confused with illusionist.)  
  
I knew the Wiccan Rede: "Bide the Wiccan Law ye must, In perfect love and perfect trust. Eight Words the   
Wiccan Rede fulfill; An 'ye harm none, do what ye will'. What ye send forth comes back to thee, So ever mind  
the law of three. Follow this with mind and heart, Merry meet, and merry ye part."  
  
But did I follow it? Did I worship? No. I took and took from the goddess and did not give back. So I took the   
opportunity to learn from women who dedicated themselves to the craft and to the earth.  
  
In my meditations I came across that phrase again. Pray without ceasing. Not kneel by your bed before you  
go to sleep, or only in a church or at sunset. Always have the object of your prayer in the back of your mind.  
But that doesn't mean you can't dedicate an hour or two solely to meditation. Especially when you have skin to  
grow and your best friend loves you enough to lend a little of her life-force to help.  
  
  



	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1  
  
Buffy and Willow sat cross-legged on Willow's bed in Buffy's old room. She didn't mind being relegated to the smaller room for a couple reasons. One, the other was too big for just her after sharing it for a year with Tara. Two, It should have been Buffy's all along but she insisted that it was a room meant for two people and she needed the comfort of her familiar old room. And three, too much that went wrong happened in that room for her to ever be comfortable in there again.  
  
Willow smiled at the comfort she felt with Buffy's hot hands in her own. She wondered, like she had before, is that a slayer thing or a Buffy thing. She took a deep cleansing breath and heard Buffy do the same. She peeked one eye open and sees Buffy peeking too.  
  
"Close your eyes," Willow whispered suppressing a giggle.  
  
"They're closed. Geez, so serious," Buffy pouted.  
  
"It is serious."  
  
"That's what I said."  
  
"Shush, we're meditating," Willow reminded her with a smile.  
  
Willow centered herself and opened her mind to the Powers. Releasing her pain, gathering the energy from Buffy and the earth around her. Concentrating on healing for a bit, she knits new skin but after a while it continues automatically. She turned her thoughts toward thanking the powers for allowing her to return to where she can do the most good. Sharing her relief that her friend still love and support her. Reminding them as she always does when she meditates, if they have any messages or tasks for her she will take them gladly to show her remorse for abusing the gifts they gave her and devotion to rejoining the path of doing good and helping others.  
  
Wandering again as her mind is wont to do, her thoughts turned toward love. Love of friends. Love of another, like Tara and Oz for she never doubted that he loved her too, though now he is in the friend category again. Love of parents, something didn't taste the full spectrum of until she Rupert Giles and Joyce Summers entered her life. Their love of Buffy Xander and herself made the benevolent neglect of her own parents fade in comparison.  
  
Still She and Xander were not Mrs. Summers children so the love they felt from her was a fraction of that directed at Buffy and Dawn.  
  
I wish I could understand and feel 100% of a mother's love.  
  
"What was that?" Buffy asked startling Willow out of her meditative trance.  
  
"What was what?" Willow responded confused.  
  
"There was a noise over there," She pointed toward the boxes on the other side of room. There were filled with items Tara had left behind and things from her childhood room. Willow was going to wait until her stomach was completely healed before she dealt with them.  
  
Then there was another noise, a light brush against cardboard.  
  
"Okay, I heard it that time," Willow agreed and carefully climbed of the bed and approached the boxes cautiously.  
  
The noise seemed to be coming from the one marked 'TOYS.' Buffy pulled a stake from the back of her pants and kneeled beside Willow as she carefully untucked the flaps of the box.  
  
Both girls gasped and Buffy dropped her stake for on top of the stuffed animals was a infant. It was alert and waving its arms and legs, which accounted for the noise.  
  
"I swear that wasn't in there when I packed it," Buffy whispered in awe.  
  
The baby's eyes connected with Willow's just before it screwed up its face and started to wail. The girls looked at each in a panic until Willow reached to pick it up. It quieted as it snuggled into her chest. Willow was absorbed in the heat of the little body against her and the weight of its bum settled on her forearm.  
  
"Buffy, I think this is my Cabbage Patch doll," Willow whispered pointing the pink and green disposable diapers the baby was wearing.  
  
"Do you suppose it has Xavier Roberts signature tattooed on its butt?"  
  
"*So* not the point," Willow hissed.  
  
"Did you do a spell? Cuz I don't think their supposed to do that on their own. And if they do I shudder to think what's in the attic."  
  
"I don't know. I don't think so. Is it even human?"  
  
Buffy leaned in for a closer look and took a good sniff of his hairless head. "Mmmm, baby smell and just a hint of mildew. I'm not a demon detector, Will."  
  
Willow lowered the baby into the cradle of the arms so she can see its face. "Maybe we should go to the hospital. They can run blood test. I hear that some baby demons look human until they're older."  
  
"lookie, Its an outie outie," buffy giggled lifting up the bottom of the baby's yellow t-shirt.  
  
"That's an unhealed umbilical cord." Willow's eyes widened and a smile grew on her face as an idea form. "This a newborn. We can go to the hospital and claim to had a homebirth and they will do tests and it can get the inoculations it needs and we can get a real birth certificate."  
  
Buffy pulled a piece of paper out of the box, "It has a birth certificate," She said with a smirk.  
  
"It maybe alright for a doll but there is no way in hell I'm naming a real baby Gertrude Amarillys."  
  
TBC..if there is interest. This is as far as I planned with the "that story sucked I can do it better" challenge I gave myself. I will take suggestions on how to continue. 


End file.
